I was wondering if both the physical cores of my core i3 2.4GHz CPU are running at the rated speed of 2.4GHz in real-time. But then I found in HWinfo that the cores are actually running at 1.2GHz separately. Is that true? Or the software’s fault?

I mean if my CPU is rated at 2.4GHz, then shouldn’t each of the cores run at 2.4 GHz? Or in a dual core processor, they sell the units rating the speed as the summation of both cores speeds?

Abhishek Ambre

February 8, 2013 at 3:31 am

Generally the specs of each individual core are given. But if u still doubt it find out your processor model and check its specs if u still cant find it then specify the model here we will guide you.

Justin Ellenwood

January 1, 2013 at 1:40 am

As others have said, they give the speed per core. However, remember that 4 cores @ 2.4 GHz doesn't mean that the proc runs @ 9.6 GHz

Manuel Guillermo López Buenfil

December 17, 2012 at 4:25 pm

Every core should have the same speed, if your processor says 2.4 GHz, then every core should run at 2.4 GHz. Otherwise, there is a problem somewhere.
As for the summation, you cannot add these speeds together. The reason is that most programs cannot run in several cores at once, and those that can need to divide their work between all the cores, but there are some kinds of work that cannot be divided. Even if a program was created to run in multiple cores, it will have some parts that still need to run in a single core. Because of that, your actual running speed will be lower than the sum of the cores speeds.

Junil Maharjan

December 17, 2012 at 4:58 am

I would back what Alex Perkins has said.

Anonymous

December 16, 2012 at 6:52 pm

Each processor runs on the same clock speed, in this case, 2.4 GHz. However, these does not add up to 4.8 GHz.

Achraf Almouloudi

December 16, 2012 at 6:25 pm

Each core is running at 2.4 Ghz but that doesn't mean the total speed is 4.8 Ghz because a program would be ACTUALLY running on only one of them, not both.

ha14

December 16, 2012 at 2:21 pm

the clock speed is per core so should be 2.4GHZ/core but perhaps on your system they are working at 1.2GHZ

perhaps you have low performance profile in Windows. on start menu type power go to change advanced power settings (this will open power option) go to processor power management check maximum processor state.

There are a few reasons why your calculated CPU clock speed may differ from what is expected:

1) CPUs made for portable computers can decrease their clock speed to lower power usage. For example, a Pentium III 1000 Mobile CPU may be measured as having a clock speed of 730Mhz at the time the measurement is done.
2) Newer CPUs also have a feature where they may over-clock some of their cores when others aren't in use.
3) The speed rating values that AMD assign to their Athlon CPU's do not correspond to their clock speed. For example, a Athlon 2000+ runs at a clock speed of 1660Mhz. This is also the case for the older Cyrix 150+ & 200+ CPUs
For reasons 1 and 2 we are constantly endeavouring to better detect when this is the case and use other methods to find the correct speed. We believe we can do this in most case with recent versions of PerformanceTest.

Alex Perkins

December 16, 2012 at 1:30 pm

I think that each core is running at 2.4GHz. This means that a single core program will be run on 1 core at 2.4GHz, but a multi-core program can split the work between each core running at 2.4GHz. However this doesn't mean total speed = core1 + core2.